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Saturday, November 12, 2005

A & E

Angelo and Esther joined us for some good times this weekend, arriving mid-afternoon yesterday, just in time for us to head out for a ride up Rattlesnake Mountain. It gets dark so early now that it was a dusk ride by the end, with the lights of the town twinkling below us. Quite beautiful, but chilly.

By the time we got the bikes back home, Tannis had some nachos going and all kinds of great microbrew was busy chillin': Tree Amber, Shaftebury Winter Nights, Phillips Amnesiac IPA, and some old favourite Naramata Nut Brown from the Cannery. Lots of good laughs, and gracious Esther was amazing with the girls. My vision was fairly fogged by the end of the night despite my fancy new glasses. My cryptic Tragically Hip post triggered a lengthy and rollicking discussion of how we create our futures together.

In the morning we tucked in to stacks of pancakes for breakfast, and it had a very homey family-home-for-the-holidays kinda feel. These guys are our oldest couple friends, with a rich history of party-mode weekends, so we often ditch the kids when they're coming, but we loved hanging out with everyone around.

A bit later, Angelo and I aimed for Rebellion, in the same area I explored for the first time a couple of weeks ago. The climb is close to an hour and a half of steady uphill singletrack, meandering around ridges and through different ecosystems. There was a little dusting of snow at the top where we rested, but nothing that interfered with the fun. I got a quick video (1MB avi) and a couple of photos on the heavenly descent, but it was really too good to interrupt more often for Kodak moments: Angelo and me. Then a quick late lunch at Shaughnessy's Cove to cap off an excellent visit...now that I think of it, could I actually have forgotten to do the traditional toast to Good Times? Cheers.

8 comments:

How could we have forgotten our regular toast? Maybe it's because 'good times' have become such a foregone conclusion... but that's always been the case.

The ride was spectacular; thanks for sharing it with me. It was your heady endorsement in our chat last week that sealed the deal. Feels really good to have snatched one last, great, ride from Winter's gaping maw. Although I seem to remember doing our 'last ride of the season' in December before...

It was a great one, wasn't it? Perhaps we have some extra incentive to do at least one more "last ride" yet before we get really blanketed. I noticed yesterday afternoon that Rebellion's mountain was all white -- less than 24 hours after we railed it.

I think I missed the toast because of the resultant chaos of our entire crew attempting to clink glasses without milk and juice spills...not to mention the precious Nut Brown pints.

Aww - look at the happy couples conversing on Jer's blog! Anyways - weirdness aside - here's my cheers to you guys enjoying a potential last ride! I enjoyed my last ride on Friday, complete with 10 degree weather with my buddy Jason (Pat injured his ankle and missed out) - unfortunately we've had a little snow disturbance dump on us here in Manitoba so my riding may be over - who knows! On the good news front - my new frame is in!